[GUI Plugin] RSS Reader

[Comfy.n]

RSS Reader — Calibre feed reader plugin

The RSS Reader plugin for Calibre allows users to subscribe to RSS feeds, automatically fetch and organize articles, save individual ones, and receive in-app notifications.

It features several layouts, supports managing profiles, exports feed lists to OPML selectively for backup or sharing, and supports importing feeds, with special support for imports from recipes, optionally adding articles to the e-book library for reading and management within the Calibre interface.

It supports audio playback for podcast feeds, advanced OPML import/export, Calibre recipe integration, and an optional AI-assisted panel for summaries and questions about articles. Designed for both casual and power users, RSS Reader gives you deep control over feeds, articles, notifications and presentation inside Calibre.

Profiles
Multiple independent profiles easily identifiable with optional badges displayed in the main dialog footer.
Quick switching from the main toolbar

Reading Layouts and zoom
Several layout alternatives and UI scaling flexibility.

Tagging
Tagging system povides both manually added and automatic tagging (auto-tags RSS feeds with more than X words, and containing images or audio, for instance.

Export
Export feed lists to OPML selectively for backup or sharing

Notifications & Preview
In-app notifications with clickable links
Configurable notification behavior and previewer

Tips
Ctrl + mouse wheel over preview panel: this zooms in/out UI
Shift + mouse wheel over AI panel: this zooms in/out this panel

Compatibility
Calibre 5.44 or later
Full functionality requires a recent version of calibre
Windows, macOS, Linux (tested on Windows; feedback welcome for other platforms)

License
GNU GPL v3

This description is being updated.

[Comfy.n]

reserved

[Comfy.n]

Version 1.0.1 - Hotfix

• Bundled feeds weren't set to download images by default; now they are.
• Provided more accurate description of each Manybooks feed.

[BetterRed]

@Comfy.n - I have not examined this plugin's functionality, nor will I, but a couple of observations regarding the install.

I installed the plugin in a calibre portable: "D:\Calibre\Portables\Latest Preview", which has a copy of my installed calibre settings. First thing I noticed is that the install creates a SQL Lite database "rss_reader.sqlite" in the calibre portable folder:



This suggests that installing the plugin on a regular installed calibre in Windows might add the file to the "C:\Program Files\Calibre2" directory — if that's what it does, then for me that's a no-no .

The plugin install also created this sub-directory "D:\Calibre\Portables\Latest Preview\Calibre Settings\plugins\rss_reader", why not put the database in it?

---

This plugin sets keyboard shortcut values that are already in use, both user custom values and calibre baseline default values - e.g. CTRL+O has been the default shortcut to open the Book folder since 'forever'.

I raised this same issue in the Template Catalog thread almost a year ago, and more recently in the Calibre Config Reports, and OPF Helper plugin threads.

For curiosities sake I installed your Comfy's Reminders plugin… it has a some keyboard shortcuts, but the install sets them to None… which gets a big ✔ and a couple of from me

BR

[Comfy.n]

Database is always external to calibre's config dir.

On portable installs, the suggested db location is at sibling location level to the folder Calibre Settings.

So, unless you choose otherwise, the db will be saved to C:\folder\Calibre Portable\rss_reader_data\rss_reader.sqlite.

BTW I like to have my portables directly at C:\folder. (I don't use the calibre portable sub dir, move the stuff to the top level)

On OS wide installs IIRC, the suggested location is the user folder( %USERPROFILE%)

This is working fine from what I seen in latest tests I made, but there is a regression in db management I will address later, related to the one-offs/save as profile. Other plugin functionality is unaffected.

[BetterRed]

I didn't choose anything, installed it and clicked it - just tried "Customise" and was told to restart calibre, I did and got the same thing.

I'll install a vanilla 8.16.2 portable at the root of my D: drive and add RSS Feed to it… but I have to go out for a few hours.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

I didn't choose anything, installed it and clicked it - just tried "Customise" and was told to restart calibre, I did and got the same thing.

I'll install a vanilla 8.16.2 portable at the root of my D: drive and add RSS Feed to it… but I have to go out for a few hours.

Installed Calibre portable 8.16.2 at D:\Calibre Portable, and then installed RSS Feed from file



Clicked the RSS icon and the RSS Welcome dialogue popped



Clicked Next and the RSS Setup dialogue popped



Clicked Finish and the RSS Featured feeds dialogue popped



Didn't want to add anything, so I clicked Cancel (???) and the RSS Main Window popped



Suggestion: Setup should have Next, not Finish, and Featured feeds should have Finish, not Cancel.

I saw none of that when I installed RSS Feeds in D:\Calibre\Portables\Latest Preview - it's hardly the sort of thing one would miss. I'll do some more tests in that location to see if I can get a handle on why - the calibre beta… probably not, or the settings which reflects 12 years of me (mis)using calibre… probably.

BR

[Comfy.n]

I think I will update the dialog to read Skip, instead of Cancel. Good catch.

The 'Finish' terminology is something I already planned to revise.

Calibre 9.0 is up. Hooray!

[BetterRed]

Yes, Skip would be better.

This is an odd one:



If I click the top OK I get this



BR

[Comfy.n]

Thanks. I tried to reproduce, but I don't see the duplication. Will have a look ASAP.

[BetterRed]

Maybe its a portable thing - here it is again on vanilla version 9.



It's weird - behaves like a Matryoshka doll.

BR

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Comfy.n

Database is always external to calibre's config dir.

On portable installs, the suggested db location is at sibling location level to the folder Calibre Settings.

So, unless you choose otherwise, the db will be saved to C:\folder\Calibre Portable\rss_reader_data\rss_reader.sqlite.

BTW I like to have my portables directly at C:\folder. (I don't use the calibre portable sub dir, move the stuff to the top level)

On OS wide installs IIRC, the suggested location is the user folder( %USERPROFILE%)

This is working fine from what I seen in latest tests I made, but there is a regression in db management I will address later, related to the one-offs/save as profile. Other plugin functionality is unaffected.

I have 249 .sqlite files in %userprofile%\AppData - most are in the Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox folder, others are in the FDM, Infogrid, Microsoft . . . folders. And I have 163 .db files, most of which are sqlite files and most of them were put there by Microsoft.

Calibre puts its default library into the users home directory because Microsoft started to sync Documents into the clouds with Onedrive. Calibre used to put the default library in the Documents folder.

BR